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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28329201">One Night, One Chance</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nimbos/pseuds/Nimbos'>Nimbos</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Billy Idol (Musician)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>1980s, AU, Angst, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Family Issues, Hallucinations, Older self meets younger self, Past Relationship(s), They kinda beef?, all the drama, quarantine made me do it</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 18:01:32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,509</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28329201</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nimbos/pseuds/Nimbos</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>This is my first fanfiction on this website and I highly doubt anyone's gonna read it since the fandom is, like, dead? Eh...<br/>Billy Idol (yep, that one) suffers hallucinations induced by his drug abuse after a failed relationship. In one of those hallucinations he meets a younger version of himself from the 70s and they have a bit of an angsty dialogue. I've always wondered what his younger punk self would have thought about his lifestyle as a star in the 80s, and after watching some interviews with the man himself I came up with this in the middle of the night. Oh yeah and they fall from a bridge. No one dies, I promisse.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>One Night, One Chance</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>As I said, this is my first fanfiction here. I wrote this about six months ago, but only now had the balls to post. Also, English is not my first language, so I'm really sorry for any mistakes/incoherence you might find! I translated this at 1am on Xmas day.<br/>This was inspired by Billy's song "One Night, One Chance" from his 1986 album "Whiplash Smile". I'd recommend you to give it a listen since a small part of the dialogue was pretty much taken from the lyrics. With no further ado, enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>New York, 1988</p><p> </p><p>Billy woke up in the middle of the night, lying on his side on the bed. <em>A crash</em>. He couldn’t remember when he’d fallen asleep, but he also couldn’t remember a lot of things from that time. He fell asleep with his pipe stuck between his hands. If anybody had seen him in this state, they’d find it a miserable sight; That bright man now lying down like a child holding his pacifier, naked except for his underwear. But this was his reality now and nothing really mattered beyond that.</p><p>He opened his eyes and, with abnormal effort, lifted his head a bit to look at the digital clock resting on the bedside table. The red LED lit numbers indicated four in the morning. The numbers became blurry and Billy supposed that he was falling back to sleep, like a stone sinking in the sea. It must’ve been the first time he’d slept for several hours in a row after a good three weeks of not sleeping at all and now everything was coming down all at once.</p><p>He felt himself slipping back into unconsciousness as the voices in his dreams came back to haunt him. So many voices layered upon one another felt like radio’s white noise involving him in a terror he could not run away from. Not eating for days had left him lethargic, thus requiring an amazing effort from his body in order to perform the smallest motion.</p><p>He curled in himself more in an attempt to retain body warmth as he made his way down to yet another crash. Suddenly, everything became quiet as he felt someone tapping on his head. Billy opened his eyes and the white noise faded, leaving him in the dead silence but for the sound of his own breathing.</p><p>“Come on, boy. Wake up” a voice told him. But there was nothing there.</p><p>Billy ignored this and shut his eyes again. Paranoia had settled on the first week he’d gone sleepless. Sometimes he’d hear voices; other times he’d see people in corners of rooms – humanoid shadows moving around in his peripheral vision; or simply the constant thought of somebody spying on him from the other side of the door or from another apartment was enough to drive him even more paranoid. He had become used to things that weren't real.</p><p>“Nothing will be done if you don’t get up” the voice repeated.</p><p>He grabbed the pillow that was resting on the top of the bed and wrapped it around his head. He only wished he’d go back to sleep. Although his dreams were confusing and foggy for most of the time, he’d at last find himself in another situation and in another reality. Sometimes, between short and almost inexistent naps, he’d dream of Perri, memories and traumas. He’d dream that his life had taken a turn and it wasn’t just the same daily search for the next hit, the same cycle of self-destruction he sank into a little further every day. Despite all of this, he couldn’t admit it, assume his self-destructive and their consequences, quit his addiction, get up and move on. He refused to acknowledge it. And this new voice, this new projection of his mind certainly wasn’t going to change that. Not at all.</p><p>However, this voice wasn’t totally new. It didn’t really belong to any of his usual hallucinations, but it wasn’t completely unknown to him.</p><p>“Let’s go for a walk” the strangely familiar voice insisted.</p><p>“Lemme sleep” he replied back.</p><p>But he was curious. In his hazy conscience he tried to remember whom voice it belonged to. But... it was obvious! He sat up abruptly, head spinning, and tried to spot something in the darkness. The lampposts were his only source of light slipping from the outside through the window and striking onto the ceiling.</p><p>“I see you ended up just like you hoped you would” said the voice all of a sudden, seemingly closer than before. “Isn’t this what you always said you’d do?”</p><p>“Who are you? Show yourself!” Billy said, clawing at nothing in front of him in a languid motion.</p><p>“You know who I am. You know me better than anyone else” the voice proceeded, hovering around his head. “I’m not speaking to an imaginary girl. I’m talking to you, myself.”</p><p>A silhouette stood dark against the light that came from the window. Billy squinted and recognized that pose, that posture moulded in the shadow. Mouth open and lips chapped, he asked,</p><p>“Are you... me?”</p><p>“Say the name.”</p><p>“Billy?” the platinum blonde boy asked, wiping drops of sweat from his forehead.</p><p>“Not that one. Not the one that everybody knows. My real name.”</p><p>“William.”</p><p>The silhouette became visible, as if someone had suddenly turned on the lights. Such image so clear that he hadn’t seen in over ten years and had been lost in his memory lane. But it had to be him.</p><p>“You got one chance. If you got the legs, I suggest we walk.”</p><p>“Me talking to myself. Are you even real?” Billy got up frailly, standing on his feet for a few moments before falling right onto the floor like an invertebrate being. The phantom walked towards him, held out a hand and replied,</p><p>“I’m as real as you are.”</p><p> </p><p>They went out. It was cold for a mid-August night and Billy, weighting nine stone of mostly crack cocaine, tucked himself more in his coat. Even at such late hour in the night, he had sunglasses on for the streetlights made his eyes burn. William had his old band’s personalized shirt, hands tucked in his lather jacket’s pockets.</p><p>They walked at the same pace for quite some time, without stopping or saying a word. The streets were relatively empty compared to the thousands of people who crossed them during the day. Bits of life could only be found in restaurants that still hadn’t called it a night, in nightclubs and hotel rooms. Windows that had been left wide open in an attempt to fight the heat showed the interior of their respective houses: people smoking on the windowsill, couples making love in the dead night, night owls looking over the street, night workers... Warm lights flood the homes and dripped into the darkness, merging into it. Laughter, yelling, arguments, altered voices echoed in the silence.</p><p>On top of buildings, kids with spray cans would taint the walls and leave their marks big for everyone to admire or reproach under the next day’s sun. In tunnels and abandoned buildings’ entrances, whole groups of people would feel the kiss of a needle, anaesthesia rushing through their veins allowing them to escape from this world for awhile and float in the endless sea of oblivion. People like him. And how miserable they looked.</p><p>After half an hour of only walking and no talking, Billy stayed behind, feet already hurting.</p><p>“Where we goin’?” he asked. Upon being met with no response from William, he stopped in the middle of the street, hands on knees, and repeated himself. “Where are we going?”</p><p>“We’re almost there” William replied while looking over his shoulder, not even bothering to stop walking. Billy sighed, straightened his posture and started walking again behind him.</p><p>As they headed to East River, they crossed the Manhattan Bridge by the side of the road.</p><p>“Enough, I ain’t gonna walk any farther!” said Billy, trying to overlap his voice to the traffic’s noise and the wind. William finally stopped walking, turning around so that he was facing his older self, who was now leaning on the railing with his elbows, lighting up a cigarette. “What do you want from me now? Did you come to haunt me like a ghost from the past or-”</p><p>“Silence is guilty and the truth can talk.” William also leaned against the railing, looking over the leaden water. Some cars would pass by and honk at them, to which Billy would stick up the finger.</p><p>“Don’t talk to me about guilt. You don’t know what I been through these last couple o’ years.”</p><p>“I don’t know, Billy? I <em>really</em> don’t know? I guess you haven’t walked enough yet. You’re no different from me.”</p><p>“Yes I did. I’ve walked here with me own legs while if it were for you I’d still be living that miserable life I used to have.” Billy was annoyed at how his younger self kept calm and collected all the time, with that heavy cockney accent, the subtle English irony and the pretentious look spread on that baby face. “I lived your fucking teenage dream. I got what you've always wished for.”</p><p>“If you’re so badass as you claim to be, why are you all alone? Where’s Perri, who you used to love so dearly?” William didn’t look at him as he spoke. “How deep have you sunk? You’re not any less miserable than I am.”</p><p>Billy’s cigarette slipped from his fingers and he jumped on his feet. Taken by fury, he grabbed William by the collar of his shirt and perched him over the railing, his bloodshot eyes pooled with tears above the sunglasses and he clenched his jaw.</p><p>“You! <em>You’re</em> the one to blame. You knew damn well what boat you were stepping into and embraced it. <em>You </em>wanted it, you dreamed of this, not <em>me</em>.”</p><p>“And why don’t you get out of it?” All of a sudden, the roles were inverted. Now Billy is the one being held by William. The wind blew on their faces and necks, sending chills all over their bodies.</p><p>It took Billy awhile for him to realise that tears were sliding down his cheeks. There was nothing he could hold on to and his weight at the moment didn’t contribute to fighting against the younger and healthier version of him.</p><p>“Go ahead, let me go. You don’t realise that I’ve cheated death too many times to be frightened of it?” he shouted in between sobs, his throat tightening when he tried to talk, his voice hoarse from crying.</p><p>“And you think it’s gonna be that easy? You think you die and that’s it?” William grew quiet for a few moments as he tried to catch his breath. “You’ve hurt everybody you loved. Anyone who had the minimum respect for you now sees you as a wanker. Not even death is going to free you from that. It won’t nullify the father you have been for your kid or the lover you were for Perri or the <em>star</em> that you are to the world.” He put emphasis on that word purposely. Because that’s what he’d become. A star. And that’s how the world saw him. Not as a human being, but as an immortal being who’d linger in eternity as long as he existed in people’s memory.</p><p>Billy realised William was also crying, although he couldn’t quite point out which sentiment had shaken him and brought him to tears: rage, sorrow or guilt.</p><p>“Look around you! Is this how you wanna end up?” William held out a hand to show everything around them, but Billy grabbed it as soon as he felt himself slip an inch over the railing.</p><p>“Don’t... don’t do that. Don’t let go of me, please.”</p><p>The sun had begun to light up the sky over the horizon. A morning of purple was about to greet New York and, in the day that was about to come with it, nothing would matter anymore.</p><p>
  <em>I know it’s over – still I cling.</em>
</p><p>And that was the last thing he saw before slipping off the railing’s cold iron, his body loosing balance and diving into free fall. However, William was still holding on to him as the two of them fell towards East River’s freezing, dark waters. Billy closed his eyes and felt the wind shaking his clothes, hair, chains, earrings.</p><p>
  <em>It’s like diving from a board into empty space, guessing whether you’ll land or not.</em>
</p><p>In the next four seconds – that felt like the longest seconds of his whole life – Billy still had time to say:</p><p>“I’m glad it’s over.”</p><p>“It’s over for one night” he heard the other voice reply, right before hitting the water.</p><p>Everything went black immediately before the splash, but there certainly was one. That and the horrified screams of the people who had now gotten out of their cars upon the bridge and leaned over the railing to try and spot a body in the water.</p><p> </p><p>He woke up to a migraine. He opens his eyes; sand illuminated by warm summer sunlight is the first thing he sees. He blinked a few times and kneeled, using his arms to support the weight of his body as he tries to get up.</p><p>“Am I alive?” he looked around, hand in head shaking the sand off his hair. “I’m alive! And perfectly fine” he squeezed different parts of his body to make sure nothing else hurt. Then he ran his hands through the warm sand, grabbing a hand full of it and letting the grains slip through his fingers. “This is amazing! William!”</p><p>Billy took another look around, as if he had missed another body that should’ve been with him. He got up wonkily and stumbled forwards, still scanning the place with his eyes.</p><p>“Young man, don’t you know you can’t swim in the river?” said a guard who was passing by when he saw Billy.</p><p>“I didn’t... I wasn’t...” But how the hell was he going to explain what had happened if even <em>he</em> wasn’t quite sure? For the first time, he didn’t talk back, choosing to keep what he knew (or rather, what he <em>thought</em> he knew) to himself. “Right. Won’t happen again, chief.”</p><p>And with that he stood next to the road and called a cab to take him back home. With Billy already sitting inside the car, the cab driver followed the same path that he and William had taken the night before, but everything seemed a lot different during daylight. As if the previous night had also been part of a hallucination.</p><p>There was no proof to what had happened. And especially not now that thousands of people walked across those same streets and cars drove down those same roads, shattering to infinitely small bits any strange narratives that might have taken place in the city just a few hours prior to daylight and that would and could no longer be gathered together. All those nightclubs and bars he’d seen before were closed now, giving way to restaurants and stores all bright and well-frequented. The night time lovers, night owls, night workers were either working, asleep or hidden somewhere else. Windows no longer showed the same houses and everything else had been crushed by thousands of other characters that were oblivious to nocturnal tales, and then promptly washed away by sunlight.</p><p>However, as he absent-mindedly looked through the car window, something struck his brain like a thunderbolt. He looked up to the top of a certain building and there he saw: the great graffiti.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>You're still here? Gee. Anyway, thanks for reading &lt;3<br/>Feedback/constructive criticism/opinions are always welcomed, so feel free to write down in the comments.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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